The High Court of Justice on Wednesday temporarily blocked Michael Rabello’s appointment as state comptroller, until the justices can issue a final decision on petitions against the controversial vote in the Knesset last month in which he was selected.

Outgoing State Comptroller Matanyahu Englman is scheduled to leave office on July 3, and Rabello was expected to take up his position on July 4. But the court said it needed more time to write its ruling on the petitions, and therefore froze Rabello’s entry into the position until it issues that decision, adding that it will do so as quickly as possible.

Immediately following the court’s decision, several coalition lawmakers called to ignore the order, with Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi, from the far-right wing of the Likud party, declaring that the Knesset should instruct Rabello to go to the State Comptroller’s Office and take up his position regardless.

Such a step would create a constitutional crisis, wherein a state institution, in this case the State Comptroller’s Office, would not know whether to follow the instructions of the court or the Knesset. It would appear unlikely, however, that Rabello himself would consider such a step, especially before a final ruling by the court.

Opposition MKs welcomed the ruling, with Yesh Atid MK Karine Elharrar saying the High Court had been right to recognize that the “coalition’s vote was invalid and corrupt,” and said that coalition declarations calling to disobey the court amounted to “the swan song of a failed and harmful government that will soon go.”

The High Court is currently considering petitions asking that it annul the controversial Knesset vote in which Rabello — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s........

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